Supreme Leader Ren
by KenRik
Summary: Because, we wish Kylo becomes half the leader Leia is. Rey/Ben. Leia/Han.


Disclaimer applies.

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Supreme Leader Ren

a One Shot

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"Do you think I am still a boy?" He asks in his deep, menacing voice. His gaze, unfaltering; his tone, resolute as he takes a step towards her. "Do you think I need saving?" He continues in challenge.

"I am neither lost nor in need of saving." He answers his own question in the woman's stead. As he approached her, she stood her ground, strong and proud as she always has; even amid his intimidating physique towering over her. "I do not need redemption." He spits at her.

"I am the Supreme Leader because I chose to be." He ends all doubt, all question about him, his heritage, his conflict. "I am neither Snoke, nor Vader, nor _Han Solo_."

"And I am ruler because it is my duty to kill the past. To bury it."

With his eyes glaring, gleaming with his expressive watery gaze, he tells her, finally, with a subtle hint of tenderness, "Do not fear for me, mother. For there was nothing I have been more certain of than this role cast upon me."

Finally, Leia's straight, unfazed expression breaks. Her wrinkled lips quirk. And a light flashes through her eyes. It seemed, as it always had been, that the connection Han and Ben never had; she and Ben always shared. So, as her final words to the son she had always loved, to the son she had lost, and to the son she had found, she tells him with her coarse, aged voice, "Then, rule."

At her words, at the sound of her voice so close to him after all these years, Ben involuntarily swallows the lump lodged in his throat; his Adam's apple, bobbing down and back. The taste in his mouth, soured by grief, by guilt of making her suffer for so long.

"Rule, Ben; righteously, justly, and fully."

Then, Leia reaches up, to cup her son's cheek; the warmth of his face, the way he fell into her touch, filled her chest with a fullness she's known only once before; when she first held him in her arms.

Ben raises his hand and gently holds on to his mother's wrinkled one. And tenderly, he vows to her in farewell, "I will." Then, his lips quirking like Leia's, like his strong-willed mother, says, "After all, I've had the best teacher."

You've thrusted him upon men; doubting yourself, your ability to bring him home. All he ever needed was you, Leia. I've never met anyone so strong, so beautiful, and able as you. I only pray our son should be half as lucky as I am - to have met someone like you.

To salvage whatever morsel was left of our family, I was willing to sacrifice my life; as I have. I only hope our son knows, just how much he means to us - to me.

Tricky it is, the relationship of a father and son. Tender, that of a son and his mother. Where the latter is filled with love and compassion, the other is filled with disappointment, competition, and unrivaled expectation.

"Your father-" Her voice choked, amid the stiffling cold air, her ragged breathing, the erupting Starkiller Base. "-He loved you! And you - you -"

His eyes widen, for faster than a second, the image of his father, breaking into a smile, flashed through his eyes. For an instant, the man wondered - did the egotistical, money-hungry scoundrel think he would run away with him? From everything he's achieved?

"You monster!"

No. A voice in his mind speaks, deep, familiar, - dead.

His father had come to him to show him how deeply he loved him - that for him, he was willing to give up his life, his past, - his future.

The cracking of the falling trees, the thundering blasts and explosions around him, once again, he hisses as he pulls himself up and, with a full fist, hits his side, deep velvet blood dripping from his suit to the white winter snow; embracing the searing pain from his fresh wound, fueling himself with the burning agony.

This love, Ben Solo will never know.

"I love him, Leia." Han breaks into his wife's tender embrace.

And with a soft voice, herself unsure, she tells him nonetheless, "He knows."

"Where," the young Ben Solo's voice broke, afraid to ask, to know the truth in what he feared. "Am I to go?" Fear - it always seemed to find him.

"To train with your uncle Luke," His mother pets his fluffy dark hair, her smile, not quite reaching her beautiful brown eyes. "To become a Jedi Knight like your uncle, like your grandfather before him." She tells him proudly.

Wide eyes look past his mother's tender gaze to his father's hard, conflicted ones, surprised by the expression in the boy's face - asking him a question he did not understand, searching for an answer he did not know.

So, instead, and rather lamely, Han tells his preadolescent son, "Give them hell, kid."

Ben's eyes fall to the ground in disappointment, nodding half-heartedly.

"Is that all you're bringing?" Luke pops in from his spaceshuttle, a grin plastered on his young, jovial face; gesturing to the calligraphy set between young Ben Solo's arm.

The boy gives a small smile, nodding. And, with a simple wave of the hand, his uncle calls him over, unaware of the friend his nephew had brought along; whispering lies and deceit into his ear.

"It is dead." Ben Solo now tells her amid the blood, metallic in stench, drying at the side of his head. The noise of the war stilled around them. "The Sith and the Jedi." And, for the third time, he raises his hand to her in offer, "Rule with me, Rey."

Promise me, Ben. Rule with righteousness, justice, and with your whole being.

Ben's tender gaze, never once before her, faltered as he tells her again, and again, "I swear it."

Uniform footsteps stop with a snap before him. Ben Solo turns from his commanding bridge and nods to his military officers.

"General Solo." An amphibious humanoid salutes him. "We've arrived."

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END.

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A/N: A snippet on what I see in Kylo Ren/Ben Solo's character. I have great hopes for him. Also, I don't want his character development to depend on another person - that's just unrealistic. You grow because of yourself, because you chose it. All your actions return to you and what you've done. The best people around you can do is to influence you. But, that's just it - it's by your choice that you allow them to influence your character.

Would've wanted to discuss more about Kylo Ren/Ben Solo's complex character. But that would take far too much time when I've already written this longer than I should've.

Here's to hoping we get a strong character out of Ben Solo/Kylo Ren in IX! Make us proud, kid!


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